ASIO fed information to my torturers, says Habib

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Evidence seized by ASIO officers from the Sydney home of Mamdouh
Habib was used during his interrogation and torture sessions in
Egypt, according to new allegations by Mr Habib and his lawyer.

The terrorism suspect says his Egyptian interrogators
specifically questioned him about hundreds of phone numbers he
believes were contained within SIM cards in his Sydney mobile
phones before Australian Security Intelligence Organisation agents
raided his home in September 2001.

"When they interrogated me I believe they get it from Australia
because they give me ... about 300 phone numbers," he told the SBS
program Dateline. "They tell me you have to give addresses
and who are these people and how you know them. And they put me in
a room with a few guards and if my hand stopped writing I got
beaten."

In the long interview on Dateline, which will air
tonight, Mr Habib also says Egyptian intelligence officers asked
him in detail about Muslims living in Australia who might have
attended the Lakemba mosque. He also alleges that an Australian and
an American were present during one of his Egyptian
interrogations.

The allegations raise questions about what co-operation, if any,
Australian intelligence offered to Egypt in Mr Habib's case, given
Egypt's long-standing record of torturing suspected terrorists.

Australian officials, including the Attorney-General, Philip
Ruddock, have repeatedly denied knowing about Mr Habib's alleged
abduction by US intelligence agents.

Mr Habib alleges he was taken from Pakistan to Egypt, where he
says intelligence officers tortured him during interrogation
sessions between November 2001 and February 2002. A spokesman for
ASIO refused to answer any questions about whether ASIO supplied
information on Mr Habib to Egyptian intelligence agencies.

Under its agreements with the US, the organisation would almost
certainly have passed intelligence on Mr Habib to US intelligence
officials, who may have then passed it to Egypt.

Mr Habib's lawyer, Stephen Hopper, told the Herald that
several mobile phones and a computer had been seized when ASIO
raided the Habib home in September 2001, although ASIO has denied
taking one mobile phone which became the subject of a long-running
complaint.

He said he would not discuss intelligence-sharing arrangements,
but added: "I expect intelligence authorities to do anything they
can to avert terrorism here or anywhere else. And I expect them to
take any lawful steps they can to deal with those issues and if
that means exchanging information for intelligence purposes, I've
got no problem with that."

In the interview, Mr Habib - acting on his lawyer's advice -
again refused to answer questions about his movements before his
arrest in Pakistan in October 2001. The head of ASIO, Dennis
Richardson, has told the Senate his organisation is certain Mr
Habib was in Afghanistan with people "who had a history of
murdering innocent civilians".

In his first unpaid television interview, Mr Habib also said
ASIO approached him numerous times to inform for it on extremists
in the Muslim community. His claim comes as another high-profile
terrorist suspect, the former Qantas baggage handler Bilal Khazal,
has been identified as a decade-long ASIO informant.

The Bulletin this week cites the Supreme Court judge Greg
James as noting Khazal's co-operation with ASIO during Khazal's
bail application last year. The trial by military commission
of David Hicks, the last Australian being held at Guantanamo Bay,
has been put back, possibly until next year, after one of the
crucial legal proceedings surrounding the case was delayed.

"Every month delay is another month David will sit in
Guantanamo," Major Michael Mori, one of Hicks' American lawyers,
told AAP yesterday.